Longitudinal Alterations in Prefrontal Resting Brain Connectivity in Non-Treatment-Seeking Young Adults With Cannabis Use Disorder.

Cannabis is increasingly perceived as a harmless drug by recreational users, yet chronic use may impact brain changes into adulthood. Repeated cannabis exposure has been associated with enduring synaptic changes in executive control and reward networks. It is important to determine whether there are brain functional alterations within these networks in individuals that do not seek treatment for chronic cannabis abuse.

Longitudinal changes in cognition in young adult cannabis users.

Introduction: Adolescent cannabis use (CU) is associated with impaired attention, executive function, and verbal learning/memory. These associations are generally observed in cross-sectional studies. Longitudinal studies of cannabis users are lacking.

Longitudinal changes in white matter microstructure after heavy cannabis use.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies of cannabis users report alterations in brain white matter microstructure, primarily based on cross-sectional research, and etiology of the alterations remains unclear. We report findings from longitudinal voxelwise analyses of DTI data collected at baseline and at a 2-year follow-up on 23 young adult (18-20 years old at baseline) regular cannabis users and 23 age-, sex-, and IQ-matched non-using controls with limited substance use histories. Onset of cannabis use was prior to age 17.

Neurocognition in college-aged daily marijuana users.

Background: Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit substance in the United States. Use, particularly when it occurs early, has been associated with cognitive impairments in executive functioning, learning, and memory.

Method: This study comprehensively measured cognitive ability as well as comorbid psychopathology and substance use history to determine the neurocognitive profile associated with young adult marijuana use.

In vivo H magnetic resonance spectroscopy in young-adult daily marijuana users.

To date, there has been little work describing the neurochemical profile of young, heavy marijuana users. In this study, we examined 27 young-adult marijuana users and 26 healthy controls using single-voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy on a 3 T scanner. The voxel was placed in the dorsal striatum, and estimated concentrations of glutamate + glutamine, -inositol, taurine + glucose, total choline and total -acetylaspartate were examined between groups.